


There's Only Now

by malfoys_minx



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26914474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfoys_minx/pseuds/malfoys_minx
Summary: When Steve retrieves a box of Bucky's old things from the Smithsonian in an attempt to do something nice for his best friend, the last thing he's expecting to find inside is a letter addressed to himself. A letter that, even seventy years after the fact, still has the power to turn his world upside down and shatter what little is left of the broken pieces of his heart.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 189





	There's Only Now

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was heavily inspired by the song 'Now' from the Doctor Zhivago musical, to the point that I seriously considered simply lifting 90% of the lyrics and using them instead of writing my own letter, only I didn't think Bucky was likely to write in verse, so...! In any case, it's absolutely beautiful and I thoroughly recommend checking it out. 
> 
> Incidentally, the title _is_ taken from the lyrics, on which note, as far as I'm aware, this is the first fic I've ever written (read: finished) that's titled with an unaltered lyric. As such I now feel that, more than a decade after publishing my first fic, I can officially call myself a fanfiction writer. I'm so proud *wipes away a tear*.
> 
> PS. Another T rating (and to be honest, it's really just a slightly angsty G). Who the hell even am I anymore?

Steve carefully placed the box on their kitchen table, before tugging out a chair and settling himself in front of it. There was a part of him that felt uncomfortable going through Bucky's things without his permission, but he wasn't sure what the museum had returned and he wanted to check there was nothing inside that might trigger his friend before he handed it over. 

It was unlikely, admittedly, and Bucky was doing much better these days, but it couldn't hurt to be careful. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the week they'd had three months back that had left the both of them more shaken than he wanted to admit. No matter how well Bucky was doing, working through his trauma with his veritable army of doctors and therapists, they couldn't fix everything, not least when Steve was still regularly donning his uniform and vanishing off to fight injustice at the drop of a hat. 

He'd offered to quit once, to hang up the shield for good and focus on being there for Bucky whenever and however he needed him, but his friend had refused to even hear him out and that had been the end of that. Steve continued to fight villains, while Bucky fought his inner demons and in the space between they lived together as quietly as they could in their shared Brooklyn apartment, trying to make up for lost time. It was a long way from perfect and yet it was still better than anything he could have imagined. He had his best friend back, they had a roof over their heads that didn't leak when it rained and enough money that neither of them would ever have to worry about going hungry again. It was more than he'd dared to hope for and it was so much more than enough, no matter what the deepest, most secret part of his heart may have wanted. 

Shaking himself out of his thoughts before he could stumble too far down the path of no return, he focused instead on the matter at hand. Lifting the lid, he began to poke through the box, smiling a little as he spotted the cufflinks Bucky's parents had given him for his 21st and the watch he'd inherited from his grandfather. Then, below the battered bible that dated back to their school days, he found his friend's favourite novel, the one with the heartfelt dedication Steve had once laboured over for hours scrawled inside. Bucky had read that book so many times, he could practically recite it by heart and just the sight of the painfully familiar front cover made his chest ache so acutely that he found himself hastily putting it aside and delving back into the box instead. Of course, Steve had already experienced something similar whilst going through his own belongings several years previous, but he'd forgotten what a powerful punch it held; the way the burst of nostalgia threatened to overwhelm him with every new item he uncovered. 

It wasn't until he'd finished skimming through a handful of letters from Bucky's Ma and sisters that he found himself returning to the book. Wanting to remind himself of whatever dumb words he'd ended up writing in the front, he flicked it open only for another letter to spill out onto the floor. Ducking down to retrieve it, he was surprised to find his own name scrawled across the front in Bucky's familiar hand and he'd pulled out the two page missive before he could think better of it. 

The first page was only a short note, apparently sent in August 1943, though he was certain he'd never seen it before. 

_Steve,_

_I hope you're keeping well. I'm sorry this message ain't longer, only I don't got a whole lot of time and I need to ask you a favour. I've enclosed a letter addressed to the best Rogers I know and it'd be real swell if you could pass it on to your sister for me._

_I'll write again as soon as I can, Bucky_

Curious and more than a little confused, he picked up the second sheet, this one addressed to 'Miss S Rogers' and wondered if there was any way the letter could have been intended for someone beside himself. Why Bucky had felt the need to send it in such a bizarrely covert manner, he had no idea, but surely there was no one else he could have meant. As far as Steve knew, his friend hadn't even known a Miss Rogers, let alone dated one and even if he had, why would he have made up some rubbish about an imaginary sister rather than merely sending it to her directly? 

With a shrug, he unfolded the letter and started to read, only to quickly realise exactly why Bucky had been forced to employ his odd little attempt at subterfuge. 

_My dearest Miss Rogers,_

_It's late and I ain't got much time, but we got our orders today and I don't know when I'll get another chance to write, so here goes nothing, I guess._

_I need you to know something. Something I shoulda told you a long time ago, but never dared say out loud. All these years I thought I was doing the right thing, that it was better this way, except the further I've got from you, the more time that's passed since the last time I saw your face, the worse those words haunt me and I can't keep them buried no more._

_Everything is different here, like the world has been turned upside down, but it makes a man see clearer, you know? Forces a guy to look at what's really important and some of those things that seemed wrong before, well, they don't seem so wrong now. Guess what I'm trying to say is if something happens to me and I never told you... well, that'd be the worst thing I coulda done, so I need to tell you now, before it's too late._

_I know you never saw yourself like I did, but you gotta know that you are so damn special in every way and I'm the luckiest guy on earth just to have stood by your side for so long. I miss you more than I can say, but I sleep a little easier knowing that you ain't here beside me this time. That I can picture you back home with your sketchbook and that Cole Porter record you love so much and remind myself that you're what I'm here for, what I'm fighting for. You're the reason I gotta keep going and I ain't gonna let you down, I_ _ain't_ _._

 _I'll make you proud if it's the last thing I do, I swear it, 'cos there ain't another person in this world or the next with a heart like yours. You're the best person I will ever know and you're_ _everything_ _to me. Even if you don't care for me like I care for you, that's alright, I just need you to know. You_ _deserve_ _to know. To know that you're loved, that there is someone on this earth that loves you more than he could ever begin to put into words. I love you. I love you so damn much that I can hardly contain it. I always have and I always will._

 _I hope I get to tell you all this for real some day; how important you are, how much you matter, how you light up my whole life just by being in it, but for now just know that you are in my heart every day, forever and always, and no matter what happens, no matter how long the world burns, that will_ _never_ _change. You are my reason for being, the reason my heart keeps beating and my lungs keep breathing and I will love you until my dying day._

_Yours, always, Bucky_

Steve barely even noticed as the letter slid from between his numb fingers to fold neatly back on itself atop the table, the aged paper hiding the words as if they could be put away so easily. As if they hadn't torn through him like a thousand little daggers, flaying him alive. 

Bucky had loved him. 

Bucky Barnes had _loved_ Steve Rogers, just as Steve had loved Bucky and he'd never even known. 

He'd always wondered, of course, had been almost certain that there was something more between them than friendship, that it wasn't just him who felt that way, but he'd always shied away from it. As if keeping his feelings hidden could make them disappear. Those feelings had been _wrong_ , or so he'd been told then, and he'd tried to fight them, tried so damn hard, and yet it had still been on the tip of his tongue to say something before Bucky left, only he never had and by the time they'd come face to face again, he'd instinctively known it was already too late. If there had ever been a chance for them, it had died the moment he'd become Captain America. 

Bucky had never looked at him quite the same after that, had been quiet and withdrawn in a way he'd never been before and Steve had known even then that he'd left something fundamentally important behind him in that vita-ray chamber. He couldn't regret it, even now, but the loss of Bucky's affection had always been the worst price he'd paid for his new body. Still, he'd never known quite how deep that wound had cut. Had never realised how much he'd truly lost... until now. 

"Steve?" 

The sound of his name wrenched him from his thoughts and he looked up in time to see his best friend strolling into the room as if the world as Steve knew it hadn't just burst into flames. 

"Buck?" he asked dazedly, feeling oddly detached from the situation, as though he were lost in a dream. 

"Fuck, Stevie, what's wrong?" Bucky was at his side in an instant, kneeling on the floor beside his chair, "You look like you've seen a ghost." 

"Pretty sure I have," he choked out. 

"What happened?" 

"I went to meet someone from the Smithsonian Institution," he explained tonelessly, "I asked about getting some of your things back and they agreed to let me have a few bits," he gestured to the box, but Bucky barely even glanced at it, his focus still on Steve's face. 

"You didn't get that expression on your face from some trinkets and pulp novels." 

"There was a letter with it. A letter addressed to me. I must have already shipped out by the time it arrived and since it was from you they filed it with your stuff when they archived it." 

"What letter?" Bucky asked, his own face slowly draining of colour, "Steve, _what letter_?" 

Wordlessly, he lifted the folded sheet from the table and handed it over. 

Bucky took it with a shaking hand, barely even skimming it before his eyes were back on Steve. 

"You only just got this? Today?" 

He nodded. 

"So back then, you had no idea..." 

"I had an idea alright, before you left, but then..." he waved a hand at his chest, "Everything was different after, I was different... Not that I was sure before, always thought maybe I'd just imagined it, seeing more because I wanted to see it, but now..." he dragged his hand over his face, refusing to cry. "I never realised until today quite how much I lost when I became _Captain America_ ," he all but spat the title, like it was something dirty and shameful, and Bucky frowned. 

"You think that changed how I felt about you?" 

"Didn't it?" 

"Fuck no. You think I loved you for your wheezy lungs and twisted spine? I loved you for _you_. For the person you were inside and that never changed." 

"But you never looked at me the same. Not after this." 

"I thought you'd got the letter. I thought you knew and chose not to say anything. I thought you were trying to let me down easy, letting me be your friend even though you didn't feel anything deeper. I thought you _knew_ , Steve." 

"I didn't. Bucky, I _didn't_." 

"Do you think..." the other man stopped abruptly, taking a shuddering breath before visibly strengthening his resolve, "Do you think it's too late to start over?" 

"You want... Still?" he asked, trying to force down the desperate spark of hope that his friend's words had kindled in his heart. 

"Always," Bucky replied immediately, voice strong and jaw set with determination. 

Cautiously, he reached for the other man's hand, a full body tremor shuddering through him when warm fingers curled tightly around his own. 

"I still love you, Steve," Bucky stated firmly. 

"I love you too," the words felt as though they'd been torn from him, but once they were out, the rest followed like water gushing out of a broken dam, "I loved you then, I loved you when I was sure you couldn't love me, when I thought you were gone, when you came back and were barely even _you_ any more. I loved you through all of that and I love you now even more than I ever have before. I _love_ you, Bucky." 

"I love you too, Stevie," his friend's voice faltered a little and Steve's hand tightened even more in response, "I love you so _much_." 

Suddenly the distance between them, small as it was, was too much to bear and Steve was moving before he'd even registered the intention, kicking his chair away and dropping to his knees in front of the only person he had ever truly wanted. A heartbeat later he was releasing Bucky's hand in favour of wrapping both arms around him, pulling him tight against his own chest and burying his face in the warm little dip where his neck met his shoulder, breathing him in. 

It took Bucky no time at all to reciprocate, his left arm locking immovably around Steve's waist while his right settled against the back of his neck, holding him in place. At the same time he turned his head just a little, his lips brushing against Steve's temple seemingly by accident, but at the slight contact, something inside him seemed to break loose. Before he could help himself, he was turning into it, chasing Bucky's mouth with his own and then they were kissing and it was too much and not enough all at the same time. 

" _Steve_." 

Bucky's voice cracked down the middle, the sound shattering around a broken sob, and yet it was only when he pulled back to look at him that he realised he was crying too, tears pouring down his own cheeks and making it almost impossible to focus. 

" _Bucky_ ," he returned more than a little desperately, trying to blink his tears away even as he freed one hand to brush over the other man's cheek, pawing uselessly at the wetness there. 

"I never thought..." his friend trailed off shakily, cutting off any reply Steve might have attempted with a near violent kiss. "It was worth it," he added when he drew back again, "All of it, every fucking second. It was worth it to have this now." 

"But if-" he started, a helpless frown marring his features, only to be interrupted by another searing kiss. 

"Don't," Bucky told him between kisses, "Don't do that. Don't play what if." 

"But-" he tried again, with exactly the same result. 

"No," his friend insisted, releasing him only to pepper kisses across his face instead, catching his tears with his lips, "We can't know what might have happened then, but everything that _did_ happen is what brought us here, _now_. We can have this now. No guilt, no fear, just _us_ and I wouldn't change that for the whole damn world." 

"Just us," Steve echoed slowly, tilting his head up to capture Bucky's mouth with his own and shuddering into the salty sweet kiss. 

"What's passed is past," his friend finished when they broke for air some indeterminate amount of time later, "Now is all that matters." 

"I like now," Steve admitted softly, pressing their foreheads together and nuzzling his nose against Bucky's. 

"I like now too," Bucky agreed and kissed him again. 


End file.
